HP is hoping to capture corporate customers with long awaited device, eschews the mass market

The
HP Slate first popped up at Microsoft's
CES 2010 keynote when CEO Steve Ballmer showed off the
device. Months went by and the status of the tablet became
increasingly unclear. Hewlett-Packard Co. acquired Palm, Inc.
in April leading some to believe that HP would scrap
the Windows 7 Slate in favor of a tablet packing Palm's
webOS.

But at long last HP has clarified the
situation, officially
announcing that the Slate project never died and has just
launched as the HP Slate 500.

The device retails for $799 (see
above link). The device offers perhaps the closest competitor
to the iPad yet, given its largish 8.9-inch screen (the iPad's screen
is 9.7-inch in diagonal).

It gets handily beat by the iPad in
battery life, only getting approximately 5 hours to the 10 hour
lifespan of the device. And it doesn't come with a built in 3G
modem, despite the higher price. A single USB port is included,
which can be used for traditional USB modems, though.

However,
in other departments it stacks up favorably against Apple's slab.
It packs a faster processor -- a 1.86 GHz single core Intel Atom Z540
processor (Apple's iPad packs a 1 GHz proprietary design, with a
Samsung core). And it has much more memory -- 2 GB -- versus
256 MB of RAM in the iPad. It also includes front and rear
cameras. An SD card reader is also included, as is Bluetooth
3.0 (the iPad has no expandable memory and only has Bluetooth
2.1)

In addition to touch input, there's also pen-driven input
thanks to "active digitizer" from Wacom. Another perk
is that the device comes with a full copy of Microsoft Windows 7
Professional edition. The rest of the installed software is
thankfully slim -- HP Slate Camera, EVERNOTE, HP Support Assistant,
Adobe Reader, Adobe PDF. Microsoft Office is not included.
Of course, with Windows 7, the Slate 500 can handle Flash --
something not possible on the iPad.

New software
can be installed by attaching an external CD/DVD drive to the USB
port. An important reminder, though, is that only 32 bit apps
work on the Atom processor.

HD video is provided via a
Broadcom Crystal HD chip.

The iPad and the Slate
500 share virtually the same graphics processor. The Slate 500 uses the
Intel GMA 500 which contains a licensed PowerVR SGX 535 core from
Imagination (not Intel) clocked at 200 MHz. This four pipeline
core is also used in Apple's A4 system-on-a-chip (SoC). The
screen resolution on the Slate 500 -- 1024x600 pixels -- is a
slightly different aspect ration than the iPad's 1024x768.

The
tablet features metal edges and a rubberized back.

It
measures 23.4 cm x 14.5 cm x 1.4 cm, compared to 24.3 cm x 19.0 cm x
1.34 cm. In other words, they're both about the same thickness,
but the iPad has a bigger footprint.

Interestingly HP is
marketing the device exclusively to business customers, initially.
This is an interest tactic and perhaps a wise one given that Apple's
iPad hasn't really made serious inroads in the business sector.
However, it may be selling the device's commercial appeal short,
given that many non-business users might want a Windows 7 tablet as
well.

Non-business customers can still head over to HP's
business site and order one when the device launches. The key
difference is that the device will not be advertised or widely
publicized to the mass market.

Of course
non-business customers might prefer the Android-powered Samsung
Galaxy Tab, which has some superior features to the Slate 500 or
the iPad. In other words, customers will soon have three
options with the launch of the Slate 500 and a welcome break from
Apple's short-lived run of monopolizing
the tablet sector.

"Paying an extra $500 for a computer in this environment -- same piece of hardware -- paying $500 more to get a logo on it? I think that's a more challenging proposition for the average person than it used to be." -- Steve Ballmer